


Noble Stock

by lexyhamilton (ohheichoumyheichou)



Series: How Have the Mighty Fallen [6]
Category: Christian Bible (Old Testament), תנ"ך | Tanakh
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-09-28
Packaged: 2018-02-19 02:14:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2370698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohheichoumyheichou/pseuds/lexyhamilton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yet another version of what may have happened after David decided to marry Jonathan's sister for political reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Noble Stock

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2005, reposted from LJ, AFF.net etc  
> Blanket disclaimer on all my biblefic: this is fiction inspired by stories and characters in the Old Testament, not any sort of exegesis or legitimate interpretation.

“Your 'Brother David' has returned,” the captain of the guards said with as much covert derision as possible when Yonatan passed him on the way to his chamber. Yonatan walked on, smiling when he heard the guards behind him whispering. They still thought they might be taking a jab at him by insinuating that David was the likely heir to Saul’s throne, though no relation at all. It was difficult for those base, power-hungry warlords to understand why anyone would be content to watch another come into what might have been his own high post. Yonatan was not sure whether even David understood him in this respect.

“Doubly your brother!” The captain shouted after him again, disappointed that the son was so much harder to perturb than his father.

Yonatan turned back, listening incredulously to what would follow.

“He has asked for your sister’s hand in marriage. That young shepherd will be king before you turn and look about you…”

The guard was cut off in his words by the clatter of a sword hurled against the stone wall beside him.

“He was a shepherd but he commands a garrison bigger than you could ever hope to,” Yonatan spoke, taking his voice still sounded befittingly calm. “And my own father was a shepherd before Samuel found him on his journeys. So leave your petty talk, before I am forced to show you why it was I who led the last campaign in the east.”

The captain smiled darkly. “I only worry for your acquisition of the throne. King David may be popular with the rabble, but none in the palace want him to displace you, Milord.”

“If I acceded, you would not be the better for it.” Yonatan continued down the passages, worried by the man’s words in spite of himself. Malicious rumor, perhaps, but every rumor had some basis in truth, especially when it originated and circulated within the palace.

He opened his chamber door, startled to see David sitting at the table, writing. No doubt more poetry for Saul’s unhappy moods.

“Welcome back. What brings you to my room at so late an hour?”

David turned, his eyes piercing as ever. Yonatan sighed in small relief when he was sure his friend had not suffered even minor injury on the campaign.

“I wanted to tell you the news before you heard it from someone else…”

Yonatan’s heart sank. “I think I have heard it. Do what you will when you are king-- keep a harem to dwarf those of Babylonia. But do not take Michal…”

“Why should I deny myself?”

“What to deny in a case such as this? It is not a political marriage of any sort… you and I both know-- the whole of Judea knows, unless they’re deaf and blind-- that you are to be the next king. And do not tell me it is to reconcile the tribes. Benjamin and Judah are set against the rest, and this union will only increase the North’s alienation and resentment.”

“And you claim to know nothing of politics. Would I were such a schemer…”

“You are, and are a step ahead of me… and I wish to God you would tell me what is prompting you to take Michal…”

“You overestimate me, Brother. I have no grand plans,” David interrupted, pushing Yonatan onto the bed. “But where else can I get your features in a form I can take to bed? Saul challenged me to bring him a hundred Philistine foreskins and I’ll go to it when my garrison is rested up.”

Then he was set on it. Yonatan prayed tears would not show themselves. David’s hand ran along his cheek, while his other pinned his arm. 

“I’ll love you more than any other. Even when I take your sister’s hand.”

“She is her father’s child. Saul would not give her over if he did not see profit for himself and ruin for you,” Yonatan murmured, turning away to avoid gazing back into the eyes above him.

“You are your father’s child too, and noble stock. I wish I had your height.” It was true. David had changed much from the day Yonatan had first beheld him, coming back with Saul, the head of the giant still dripping dark clots. He was a mere boy who had to be instructed for several years in the finer techniques of warfare by Yonatan, who had been raised into it. David may never have attained the stature of his friend, but it made no real difference, for he had gained in strength since those early days, and Yonatan felt somewhat helpless when pinned on his bed.

“Great height, but delicacy of bone, and delicacy of face. The tribe of Benjamin often retains their progenitor’s comeliness, I have noticed.” David lavished kisses on the features that had pleased him. Yonatan hoped his heart’s pounding seemed loud only to himself.

“That is why Michal. But then, I never liked to satisfy myself with second best…”

There was a painfully long pause.

“I want to know you, Brother,” David finally whispered, his smile looking deceptively boyish. Yonatan felt his cheeks burning. He had dreamed abominations before drifting to sleep, and his father had accused him of ill-begotten lust many times, though Yonatan could see Saul himself was not impartial to the youth. Did innocence weigh more than love? Why should his sister enjoy what he had earned for her?

“You were ever a younger brother to me,” Yonatan said, though the protest trickled out of his tone quickly.

“Judah was ever the protector of young Benjamin. As I shall be yours when I am king.” So confident David was, and even now he pressed their bodies together, though still robed.

“Let me turn over,” Yonatan whispered back hastily, looking away, internally cringing. Why should he be so afraid? He had taken on legions of Philistines, conducted affairs of state at his father’s side. Why be so afraid of a childish game…

He gripped a pillow under his chest, casting down his head so that his black hair cascaded around and hid his face, though he never decided from whom. He could hear David undressing behind him. He would not undress. It was cruel enough to be made to serve up body and soul. David threw up the hems of his companion’s robe. Exposed to the cool air, Yonatan soon felt the heat of his friend press against him.

“Oh, and let us not forget the oil.” David suddenly retreated to reach over for the flask of oil meant for the morning cleansing. When he began to recite the blessing for olives, Yonatan turned back frantically.

“You shall not sully God’s name when we do this.” He jumped as David’s hand applied the cold, most sacred fruit of Judea’s fields to his own person. In all his agitation, he still arched instinctively into the gentle touch before remembering his shame.

“God loves beauty, and love is beautiful when it is given freely.” Yonatan could not discern if David was jesting or not. “I shall write a psalm about our love.”

“No, no, no…” Yonatan turned back around, applying his hands to his ears to avoid hearing his abasement celebrated in the language meant to be sent up to the heavens. His very soul trembled in fear now, but he dared not bring his legs together either. He felt David’s hands settle on either side of chest, so close that a deep breath made Yonatan’s ribs come up against the arms.

And breathe heavily he did when David first entered him. Tears stung their way out of his eyes and onto the bedspread. This was the punishment for their sinning. Yonatan embraced the pain and resigned himself to simply wait for the younger to finish. Yet as the embroidery of the pillow scratched his chest with each lunge forward, there was also a small burst of pleasure inside him.

“God loves us Yonatan-- because we are beautiful-- and righteous-- and we bring glory to his nation.” David stuttered out between thrusts, punctuating each one with a kiss between the trembling shoulder blades before him. “And shall continue to bring glory...”

Yonatan suddenly raised himself on his knees, though it was awkward to do it when they were still in union. David struggled to find purchase again, while Yonatan’s hand attended to his excitement—grown too great to be pleasant when stifled into the bed. One hand was not enough to steady himself when David resumed his thrusts, and Yonatan reluctantly anchored himself against the bed again. He bucked in pleasure when David’s hand came to replace his at the same post, and the two moved against each other, violently eager. David came first, though Yonatan hardly felt it in his own frenzy, and just as his friend’s hand laxed, release came suddenly and hard. They collapsed, one next to the other, breathing fast, finding that even all their warrior days had not quite prepared their knees and backs for such rough sport. Fatigue and bliss overcame residual pain in Yonatan and the two fell asleep intertwined before uttering another word.

Yonatan flinched and knew it was David’s lips on his eyes before he opened them. His body recalled the previous night’s activities more quickly than his mind, and he groaned when he discovered the spots of dried blood on the bed and his clothing.

David was still nude, and thought nothing of continuing to nip at his bedmate’s neck, even as Yonatan tried to extricate himself and get up to cleanse himself from the filth he had lain in all night.

“You see? It is dirty and sinful, what we did,” he lamented, voice shaking when he saw David, still entangled in the sheets on the bed, still bearing that carefree smile as if nothing had happened. 

The young man stretched, exposing his entire body shamelessly. “I doubt that spilling blood in this way is worse than doing it out on the fields.”

Saul’s palace had never amounted to anything more than a fortress, so the furnishing were spare, and Yonatan would have to go out of his door to find a place to give himself a proper cleansing. Now he agreed with David that a king of Judea deserved better accommodations, if only to gain the respect of the Egyptians and Babylonians.

“What distinguishes us now from the Philistines that you call such heathens?”

David grinned. “That I am going to bring your father a hundred of their foreskins tomorrow, as a dowry, when you and I have been deprived of ours for years.”

Yonatan clenched his jaw, hands trembling, ashamed of his hopes that offering his body would deter his friend from his plans. David never went back on a promise. Saul’s bloodthirsty request only served to excite this headstrong youth. Yonatan had not wanted to know jealousy, but it swirled within him now.

“Do not go. You will be killed, and that is what my father wants.”

“Your father also wants me not to go, so that he will not have to hear the people sing my praises. But I will go and they will sing them. For ages to come.”

Yonatan made to change his robe to venture outside of his room. 

“They will sing praises of us for ages to come,” David added. “I will always love you best.”

Perhaps he should not have shut his ears to the psalm, Yonatan thought as he made his way across the hallways to the baths. The snippet he had heard played inside his head like a never-ending chorus.

 _Yonatan, my brother; you are most dear to me,  
Your love for me is wonderful, passing the love of women._ (Samuel II. i.26)

***

“He has returned, Brother! He has returned with double the dowry our crazy old father demanded.”

Yonatan smiled wanly at his sister, turning away for a moment from the window from which he watched David’s military procession below. Perhaps there was hope for her yet.

“Father is furious, of course, but I care not,” she said, laughing, twirling about the room, and Yonatan got up and embraced the giddy bride.

“Promise me to never go against your husband. Our father’s moods swing as wildly as the directions of the wind, and you must be loyal to your new family and not your old.”

“I shall remain loyal to you, Brother. For I know you love David almost as much as I do.”

Yonatan smiled and sent her off to dress in more regal attire. The wedding would not wait long, with David’s and Saul’s penchants to do everything impulsively, whether out of joy or fury. Though he longed to stay in his room that evening, he knew he must attend, for politeness, for friendship, and for kinship.

David and Michal were still children in some ways, he realized with dismay. It would be better if he attended, if only to stay his father’s wild mind. Young, delicate Benjamin still had to protect Judah for the time being.


End file.
